


Epigenetics

by deathwailart



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Female Friendship, Gen, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Subject 15 - before, during and after Abstergo.  </p><p>Written for the prompt: subject 15 and Lucy and happier endings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epigenetics

The file reads: Eleanor 'Ellie' Kincaid. 27. Address, next of kin, blood type, medical information. Not an assassin, not a templar but it's there in her blood and so she's been sucked into all this, lured by the promise of a job. A scientist. Like Lucy. Endocrinologist and Abstergo needs people for things like that so it sounds perfect, to bring her in after all the careful surveillance – let her cut ties with the family by saying it's all top secret and she doesn't want to jeopardise her chances and it makes Lucy feel old, feel so goddamn old. A part of her, that teenage girl burning with belief with the brilliant mind only they could appreciate, that part wants to scream at her to run hard and fast and to change everything about herself, to not let them do this. But she doesn't.  
  
This has to be done.  
  
So when Vidic comes to meet her and Lucy follows where they discuss mitochondrial DNA, hormone receptors, epigenetics and Vidic asks her if she'd like to see the Animus and what Lucy has accomplished. Part of Lucy is amazed (horrified maybe, she tries not to examine her own feelings anymore or what her brain chemistry is doing) that most of her flustered protestations at Vidic's praise isn't manufactured, not that he can tell, he's more than happy to believe that his protégé is a marvellous actress.  
  
They ask Ellie if she'd like to try it.  
  
Lucy knows what it's like to be a scientist where so often you do things because you can, to see what's going to happen, the curiosity that one day they'll uncover the origins of.  
  
She regrets it soon when they take away her name and call her Subject Fifteen instead, Vidic's 'please, call me Warren' veneer chipping away and Lucy can't look her in the eye and monitors her vitals, makes notes, tries to make it as easy as she can when Vidic's temper flares and he rants and raves. She gets most of the same memos and emails as him. There's a deadline. There's always a deadline but Ellie...Ellie's not handling it well. She throws up (memorably she throws up on the Animus table once and Lucy panics that she's having a seizure and Vidic is _ordered_ to give her the day off) and she has headaches and her synchronisation rate drops, it's all over the place and suddenly there's a flood of memories that shouldn't be there and Lucy is horrified and embarrassed they didn't put it together sooner and wonders just what tests they even bothered to run with the medical team came to examine Ell- Subject Fifteen. If it were under any other circumstance Lucy would be excited at the readings they're getting and well she's fascinated, you can't turn that off and what they could learn about early foetal development, it's unbelievable. But they have a job to do and Warren wants her back in that Animus, citing the size of a foetus at that stage and that they have work to do Miss Stillman.  
  
Ellie hasn't spoken to her since this began and she realised that her pleas went unheeded, that Lucy had been in on this, that this had always been the plan but she has no one else and maybe she just can't hold it in now. She begs Lucy for help, for this baby she didn't know about (and Lucy gets it because Ellie isn't one of those women on a reality TV show so steeped in denial she doesn't realise she's having a baby until her waters break, you get caught up in life and you don't keep track of things you really should and she knows just how high stress science so often is and when coffee is every single meal) because this could damage it. She knows her body isn't handling this stress and any stress is bad and the Animus is such an unknown quantity with Daniel Cross being whispered furtively like he's a ghost in the walls and wiring and will hear and lash out.  
  
She's terrified but all it takes is one email. One email and praise and it makes her sick and she has to hatch a plan. She can do one good thing and maybe they'll know and maybe they won't but this is an innocent child and Lucy has done enough. There are furtive conversations and she's never been so thankful for the quiet casual misogyny old men have and the arrogance of one Warren Vidic when she gets to spend time alone with Ellie because Vidic thinks they're talking babies when she's drilling into Ellie all that she needs to know for when she gets out because Lucy has erased all evidence of these communications and she can't risk writing it down. So they go over it time and time again, where to go, where she heard from last, how to get there, what to say. Lucy apologises over and over and feels like a little girl and she hates that Ellie is grateful and that Ellie squeezes her hands and says she understands because _no one_ does. No one. But she can't say that. She can't say more other than hatching a plan and she tells Warren that Ellie needs to walk and that she'll keep an eye on her and that maybe Ellie might, at a later stage, when things are more solid, go back into the Animus or that Lucy will try to find out about the father and he gets that manic gleam in his eyes and waves them off.  
  
Her heart is pounding, her palm is sweaty in Ellie's as they head down to the main floor and walk through neat rows of glass cubicles pretending they're fine until Lucy gives her the signal. Ellie punches her hard in the jaw (it has to look real but Ellie has every reason to want to hurt her anyway) so Lucy sees stars, reaching into her pockets to pull out what she needs – stolen keycard for the doors and a card and Lucy sees the determination in her eyes before she drops and it's the last she ever sees of Eleanor Kincaid before she drops to the floor.  
  
\---  
  
"Eleanor Kincaid?"  
  
The voice makes her jump because somehow she's made it to the airfield and there it is, a small private plane and a woman waiting at the door, smiling as warmly as one can under the circumstances. "Yes." She barely recognises her own voice but allows herself to be pulled into a comforting embrace.  
  
"I'm Andromeda Miles."  
  
She allows herself to sag, to cry noisily into her shoulder as Andromeda strokes her hair and leads her up the steps, gets her buckled in and holds her hand through takeoff.  
  
"It's going to be okay," Andromeda says and she believes her. "And congratulations."  
  
Ellie touches her stomach and smiles – it's the first time she's heard that and she squeezes Andromeda's hand, leans her head on her shoulder and falls asleep to her murmuring something she suspects is a poem, stroking her hair as if she's her long lost child returned home.  
  
(And months later, when there's a healthy baby boy Kincaid in her arms, Andromeda one of the first to hold him outside the doctor and nurse and Ellie herself, she finally realises that Andromeda is still hoping for that day.)

**Author's Note:**

> I have an embarrassing amount of headcanon about Mrs Miles and honestly I just want to know so much more about her, about the ladies of the order and I'm amazed I restrained myself this much. As for Ellie's career, I'm a fourth year zoology student so I wanted something scientific and I just really want female friendships. 
> 
> Epigenetics: the study of mitotically or meiotically heritable changes in gene expression or cellular type caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence. (I'm doing a project that involves a lot of reading about mtDNA and DNA and other heritable things and wow epigenetics is really cool.)


End file.
